1. Field of the Invention
The invention is directed to methods and systems of hyperspectral and multispectral imaging of medical tissues. In particular, the invention is directed to new devices, tools and processes for the detection and evaluation of diseases and disorders such as diabetes and peripheral vascular disease that incorporate hyperspectral/multispectral imaging.
2. Background of the Invention
Diabetes afflicts an estimated 194 million people worldwide, affecting 7.9% of Americans (over 21 million people) and 7.8% of Europeans. Between 85% and 95% of all diabetics suffer from Type 2 diabetes, although nearly 5 million people worldwide suffer from Type 1 diabetes, affecting an estimated 1.27 million people in Europe and another 1.04 million people in the United States1. Both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetic patients are at higher risk for a wide array of complications including heart disease kidney disease (e.g. nephropathy), ocular diseases (e.g. glaucoma), and neuropathy and nerve damages to name a few2. The feet of diabetic patients are at risk for a wide array of complications, which are discussed below. Problems with die foot that affect the ambulatory nature of the patient are not only important from the standpoint of physical risk, but also convey an emotional risk as well, as these problems disrupt the fundamental independence of the patient by limiting his or her ability to walk.
Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) affects primarily people older than 55. There are currently 59.3 million Americans older than 55, and over 12 million of them have symptomatic peripheral vascular disease. It is estimated that only 20% of all patients with PAD have been diagnosed at this time. This represents a dramatically underpenetrated market. Although pharmacologic treatments for PAD have traditionally been poor, 2.1 million nevertheless receive pharmacologic treatment for the symptoms of PAD, and current diagnostic tests are not considered to be very sensitive indicators of disease progression or response to therapy. Additionally, 443,000 patients undergo vascular procedures such as peripheral arterial bypass surgery (100,000) or peripheral angioplasty (343,000) annually and are candidates for pre and post surgical testing. One difficulty in diagnosing PAD is that in the general population, only about 10% of persons with PAD experience classic symptoms of intermittent clarification. About 40% of patients do not complain of leg pain, while the remaining 50% have leg symptoms which differ from classic clarification.
Relying on medial history and physical examination alone is unsatisfactory. In one study, 44 percent of PAD diagnoses were false positive and 19 percent were false negative when medical history and physical examination alone were used.3 For this reason, physicians have looked for other means to help in providing diagnosis. As in the case of diabetic foot disease, current technologies have fallen short. Nonetheless, patients are frequently sent to peripheral vascular laboratories for non-invasive studies. While the test results are known to be inaccurate, these results do provide some additional information to physicians for assistance in diagnosis or treatment decisions.
Another problem face by physicians is disease of the peripheral veins. Venous occlusive disease due to incompetent valves in veins designed to prevent backflow and deep vein thrombosis, results in venous congestion and eventually stasis ulcers. Approximately 70% of leg ulcers are due to venous occlusion. Many of these ulcers are found at the medial malleolus. The foot is generally swollen and the skin near the ulcer site is brownish in appearance.
Pathology
Diabetic feet are at risk for a wide range of pathologies, including microcirculatory changes, peripheral vascular disease, ulceration, infection, deep tissue destruction and metabolic complications. The development of an ulcer in the diabetic foot is commonly a result of a break in the barrier between the dermis of the skin and the subcutaneous fat that cushions the foot during ambulation. This, in turn, can lead to increased pressure on the dermis, resulting in tissue ischemia and eventual death, and ultimately result in an ulcer.4 There are a number of factors that weigh heavily in the process of ulcerations5—affecting different aspects of the foot—that lead to a combination of effects that greatly increase the risk of ulceration:6                 Neuropathy—Results in a loss of protective sensation in the foot, exposing patients to undue, sudden or repetitive stress. Can cause a lack of awareness of damage to the foot as it be occurs and physical defects and deformities7 which lead to even greater physical stresses on the foot. It can also lead to increased risk of cracking and the development of fissures in calluses, creating a potential entry for bacteria and increased risk of infection.8         Microcirculatory Changes—Often seen in association with hyperglycemic damage.9 Functional abnormalities occur at several levels, including hyaline basement membrane thickening and capillary leakage. On a histologic level, it is well known that diabetes causes a thickening of the endothelial basement membrane which in turn may lead to impaired endothelial cell function.        Musculoskeletal Abnormalities—Include altered foot mechanics, limited joint mobility, and bony deformities, and can lead to harmful changes in biomechanics and gait. This increases pressures associated with various regions of the foot. Alteration or atrophy of fat pads from increased pressure can lead to skin loss or callus, both of which increase the risk of ulceration by two orders of magnitude.        Peripheral Vascular Disease—Caused by atherosclerotic obstruction of large vessels resulting in arterial insufficiency10 is common in the elderly populations and is yet more common and severe in diabetics.11 Diabetics may develop atherosclerotic disease of large-sized and medium-sized arteries, however, significant atherosclerotic disease of the infrapopliteal segments is particularly common. The reason for this is thought to result from a number of metabolic abnormalities in diabetics, including high LDL and VLDL levels, elevated plasma von Willebrand factor, inhibition of prostacyclin synthesis, elevated plasma fibrinogen levels, and increased platelet adhesiveness.        
Venous Disease—Caused by incompetent valves controlling backflow between the deep veins and the more superficial veins or thrombosis of the deep veins. Venous occlusions are typically observed in the elderly who typically presented with swollen lower extremities and foot ulcers typically at the medial malleolus.
Previous studies have shown that a foot ulcer precedes roughly 85% of all lower extremity amputations in diabetic patients12, 13 and that 15% of all diabetic patients will develop a foot ulcer during the course of their lifetimes.14 More than 88,000 amputations performed annually on diabetics,15 and roughly an additional 30,000 amputations are performed on non-diabetics, mostly related to peripheral vascular disease. Estimations have shown that between 2-6% of diabetic patients will develop a foot ulcer every year13, 16 and that the attributable cost for an adult male between 40 and 65 years old is over $27,000 (1995 US dollars) for the two years after diagnosis of the foot ulcer.16 In conjunction with the increased total costs of care, Ramsey et al showed that diabetic patients incurred more visits to the emergency room (more than twice as many as control patients), more outpatient hospital visits (between 2× and 3× as many as control subjects) and more inpatient hospital days (between 3× and 4× as many as control patients) during the course of an average year.
Foot pathology is major source of morbidity among diabetics and is a leading cause of hospitalization. The infected and/or ischemic diabetic foot ulcer accounts for about 25% of all hospital days among people with diabetes, and the costs of foot disorder diagnosis and management are estimated at several billion dollars annually.16, 17 
Current Diagnostic Procedures
The first step in the assessment of the diabetic foot is the clinical examination18, 19. All patients with diabetes require a thorough pedal examination at least once a year, even without signs of neuropathy. Evaluation of the diabetic patient with peripheral vascular disease should include a thorough medical history, vascular history, physical examination, neurologic evaluation for neuropathy and a thorough vascular examination.20 
The next step in the work up of a patient with significant peripheral vascular or diabetic foot disease is non-invasive testing.21 Current clinical practice can include ankle brachial index (ABI), transcutaneous oxygen measurements (TcPO2), pulse volume recordings (PVR) and laser Doppler flowmetry. All of these clinical assessments are highly subjective with significant inter- and intra-observer variability especially in longitudinal studies. None of these methods are discriminatory for feet at risk, and none of them provide any information about the spatial variability across the foot. Doppler ultrasound with B-mode realtime imaging is typically used to diagnose deep vein thrombosis while photo and air plethysmography are used to measure volume refill rates as a means of locating and diagnosing valvular insufficiency. Currently there is no method to accurately assess the predisposition to serious foot complications, to define the real extent of disease or to track the efficacy of therapeutics over time.
Background of Hyperspectral Imaging
HSI or hyperspectral imaging is a novel method of “imaging spectroscopy” that generates a “gradient map” of a region of interest based on local chemical composition. HSI has been used in satellite investigation of suspected chemical weapons production areas22, geological features23, and the condition of agricultural fields24 and has recently been applied to the investigation of physiologic and pathologic changes in living tissue in animal and human studies to provide information as to the health or disease of tissue that is otherwise unavailable.25 MHSI for medical applications (MHSI) has been shown to accurately predict viability and survival of tissue deprived of adequate perfusion, and to differentiate diseased (e.g. tumor) and ischemic tissue from normal tissue.27 
Spectroscopy is used in medicine to monitor metabolic status in a variety of tissues. One of the most common spectroscopic applications is in pulse oximetry, which utilize the different oxyhemoglobin (oxyHb) and deoxyhemoglobin (deoxyHb) absorption bands to estimate arterial hemoglobin oxygen saturation.28 One of the drawbacks of these systems is that they provide no information about the spatial distribution or heterogeneity of the data. In addition, these systems report the ratio of oxyHb and deoxyHb together losing diagnostic information that can be garnered by evaluating the state of the individual components. Such spatial information for the individual components and the ratio is provided by HSI, which is considered a method of “imaging spectroscopy”, where the multi-dimensional (spatial & spectral) data are represented in what is called a “hypercube.” The spectrum of reflected light is acquired for each pixel in a region, and each such spectrum is subjected to standard analysis. This allows the creation of an image based on the metabolic state of the region of interest (ROI).
In vivo, MHSI has been used to demonstrate otherwise unobserved changes in pathophysiology. Specific studies have evaluated the macroscopic distribution of skin oxygen saturation,29 the in-situ detection of tumor during breast cancer resection in the rat,27 the determination of tissue viability following plastic surgery & burns,30, 31 claudication and foot ulcers in diabetic patients,32-37 and applications to shock and lower body negative pressure (LBNP) in pigs and humans, respectively.38-40 In a skin pedicle flap model in the rat, tissue that has insufficient oxygenation to remain viable is readily apparent from local oxygen saturation maps calculated from hyperspectral images acquired immediately following surgery; by contrast, clinical signs of impending necrosis do not become apparent for 12 hours after surgery.41 
Non-invasive measurements of oxygen or blood flow have been demonstrated previously, with investigators using thermometry,42 point diffuse reflectance spectroscopy,43, 44 and laser Doppler imaging.45 Sheffield et al, have also reviewed laser Doppler and TcPO2 measurements and their specific applications to wound healing.46 While other techniques have been utilized in both the research lab and the clinic and have the advantage of a longer experience base, MHSI is superior to other technologies and can provide predictive information on the onset and outcomes of diabetic foot ulcers, venous stasis ulcers and peripheral vascular disease.
Because MHSI has the ability to show anatomically relevant information that is useful in the assessment of local, regional and systemic disease. This is important in the assessment of people with diabetes and/or peripheral vascular disease. MHSI shows the oxygen delivery and oxygen extraction of each pixel in the image collected. These images with pixels ranging from 20 microns to 120 microns have been useful in several ways. In the case of systemic disease, MHSI shows the effects on the microcirculation of systemic diabetes, smoking, a variety of medications such as all of the classes of antihypertensives (ACE inhibitors, ARBs, Beta blockers, Peripheral arterial and arteriolar dilators), vasodilators (such as nitroglycerine, quinine, morphine), vasoconstrictors (including coffee, tobacco, pseudephedrine, Ritalin, epinephrine, levophedrine, neosynepherine), state of hydration, state of cardiac function (baseline, exercise, congestive heart failure), systemic infection or sepsis as well as other viral or bacterial infections and parasitic diseases. The size of the pixels used is important in that it is smaller than the spacing of the perforating arterioles (˜0.8 mm)47 of the dermis and therefore permits the visualization of the distribution of mottling or other patterns associated with the anatomy of the microcirculation and its responses. In the case of the use of MHSI for regional assessment, in addition to the above systemic effects at play, the image delivers information about the oxygen delivery and oxygen extraction for a particular region as it is influenced by blood flow through the larger vessels of that region of the body. For example an image of the top of the foot reflects both the systemic microvascular status and the status of the large (macrovascular) vessels supplying the leg. This can reflect atherosclerotic or other blockage of the vessel, potential injury to the vessel with narrowing, or spasm of some of the smaller vessels. It can also reflect other regionalized processes such as neuropathy or venous occlusion or compromise or stasis. In the case of local disease MHSI shows the actual effect of the combination of systemic, regional and local effects on small pieces of tissue. This combines the effects of systemic and regional effects described above with the effects of local influences on the tissue including pressure, neuropathy, localized small vessel occlusion, localized trauma or wounding, pressure sore, inflammation, and wound healing. Angiogenesis during wound healing is readily monitored with MHSI.
Wounds other than on the foot can be similarly assessed, such as sacral decubiti, other areas of pressure necrosis, prosthesis stumps, skin flap tissue before, after or during surgery, areas of tissue breakdown after surgery, and burn injuries. Current optical methods for evaluating tissues for the conditions described above include:                Laser Doppler (LD)—In early iontophoresis experiments as well as recent efforts both LD and MHSI data were collected, and some changes in our images (total hemoglobin) are primarily a consequence of changes in perfusion which was roughly correlated to LD. However, important other changes in MHSI images that report specifically O2 extraction and tissue metabolism (O2Sat) are not related to perfusion or LD readings per-se. Superior spatial resolution with MHSI, and O2 extraction information adds highly important clinical information.        Transcutaneous PO2 (TcPO2)— TcPO2 data collected in subjects with peripheral vascular disease and ischemia study as well as in patients with diabetes both with and without foot ulcers. TcPO2 measurements appeared cumbersome, lengthy (˜20-30 minutes), highly operator dependant, and carried data only from skin directly under the probe (with little ability to distinguish the spatial characteristics of the ischemic area). While TcPO2 has been shown to carry statistically significant information in terms of quantifying tissue at risk for ulceration,48 TcPO2 was not encouraging as a useful clinical device.        Non-imaging techniques—Techniques such as near-infrared absorption spectroscopy (NIRS) or TcPO2, rely on measurements at a single point in tissue which may not accurately reflect overall tissue condition or provide anatomically relevant data, and probe placement on the skin can alter blood flow and cannot deliver accurate information in the area of an ulcer or directly surrounding it. Because MHSI is truly remote sensing, data are acquired at a distance, eliminating probe placement errors and allowing the investigation of the wound itself, which some techniques can not accomplish due to infection risk.        
In short, analysis supports the following conclusions:                1. Level of oxygenated hemoglobin in the tissue of arms and feet of diabetic subjects is lower than the level of oxygenated hemoglobin in the skin of control subjects. This is statistically significant result with separation between diabetics and controls.36         2. Oxyhemoglobin in the arms and feet of ulcerated subjects is lower than oxyhemoglobin in diabetics without the ulceration. The strong signal suggests ability to distinguish diabetics at lower and high risk.        3. Oxygen saturation level in the skin of arms and feet of diabetics is lower than oxygen saturation in the skin of controls. This is at a statistically significant level allowing separation between diabetics and controls.        4. MHSI quantitatively assesses different areas of tissue metabolism on both dorsal and plantar foot surfaces of any curvature.        5. MHSI evaluates state of tissue as a function of distance away from ulcer to assess the viability of surrounding tissue, and evaluate the degree of risk of further ulceration.        6. MHSI can be classified with a 4-quadrant system to determine the metabolic state of tissue using oxygen delivery and oxygen extraction: low/low, low/high, high/high, and high/low. This metric is used in distinguishing healthy tissue from ulcerated, or from a tissue at risk of ulceration.        7. MHSI is a unique visualization method that produces an image that combines spatial information from three independent parameters characterizing tissue: oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin concentrations and light absorption.        8. MHSI evaluates skin metabolism at high resolution of 20-120 microns per image pixel.        9. Specific MHSI regions associated with the margins of the ulcer correlate to inflammation (and/or infection).        10. Areas of decreased MHSI indicate tissue at risk for non-healing, ulcer extension, or primary ulceration.        11. MHSI differentiates between regions of tissue associated with a present foot ulcer on the basis of biomarkers such as oxyHb and deoxyHb coefficients.        12. MHSI evaluates temporal changes in oxygen delivery and extraction to particular areas, both, on local and systemic scale. The trend in the change of oxyHb and deoxyHb are used to predict healing status of a wound/ulcer as well as progression of diabetic complications.        13. Specific results from MHSI are indicative of inflamed tissue.        14. MHSI examines tissue for gross features that may be indicative of global risks of complications, such as poor perfusion or the inability of the microcirculation to react and compensate in tissue.        15. MHSI has potential in diagnosing global microcirculatory insufficiencies and impacting on other complications of diabetes associated with the microvasculature besides foot ulcers.        
MHSI is superior to other modalities for assessing the healing potential of tissue adjacent to ulcers. MHSI provides more direct measurements of oxyHb and deoxyHb activities of the affected tissue. Hence, the discrimination is not markedly improved by adding iontophoresis results to refine prediction as is required for Laser Doppler to do so. MHSI has significant advantages over laser Doppler and TcPO2 measurements. Whereas MHSI is able to deliver spatially relevant data with high spatial resolution, TcPO2 delivers only single point data. Laser Doppler data has poor spatial resolution and is frequently reported as a single mean numerical value across the region of interest.